I'm three movies in and the quality of these things goes downhill fast. The first one is a lot of fun. It's clear they were working with a very small budget and had to make the most of what they had, and I think the cast and crew did a great job under those constraints. The need to keep most of the gore offscreen, which I'm guessing was part of the budgetary constraints, helps build the tension nicely, same with the reliance on practical effects. The acting is hammy, but in a world where an elderly cancer patient can build torture devices and become a vigilante/serial killer that's a feature not a bug. Even if you know the twist (and who doesn't at this point), that ending sequence owns. The result of all of this is basically a louder, cheaper, dirtier version of Se7en and I kind of love it for that.
The sequel is way dumber, though that's not necessarily a wholey negative thing. A lot of this comes out of the increased focus on more elaborate traps. This does unfortunately make for a much less satisfying narrative, as more traps and a higher body count means that there are way too many characters fighting for screentime. Add in a less compelling protagonist and the fact that Jigsaw loses more of his menace and mystery the more screen time he gets and it's a noticable downgrade. Still, the traps are fun and creative and the gore is at that level where it's still disturbing and not silly. It'd call it an enjoyable spooky season watch even if it doesn't quite live up to it's predecessor.
The third film is where the series goes from "trap focused slasher film" to "convoluted torture porn," and I mean that as a negative. The traps just have so many fucking moving pieces and elaborate setups that it starts to feel goofy, special mention going to the "drowning in rotten pig guts" trap. I'd include the rack as well, but that at least fits the overall aesthetic established with the first movie's iconic reverse bear trap. The lengthy surgery scenes also bear mention for being pointlessly gory filler, but what really drags the film down is the lame rotating three protagonists. Jeff is just the worst, he doesn't really grow or change over the course of the story and watching him fail to solve Jigsaw's traps is more comical than scary. Lynn fares a bit better but she still gets to do very little of consequence (again, she's the one who gets stuck with all the brain surgery bits) and the fact that her role in Jigsaw's "game" is just to be a test for Amanda and a motivator for Jeff really sucks. And speaking of Amanda, her role in all this just confused me, as her motivations just felt contradictory and arbitrary. I'm aware that she's a popular character in the fandom, but honestly the more screentime she gets the less I enjoy her presence. It's also clear that this is meant to be a definitive end to the series, which is very funny to watch now when there's a tenth movie coming out tomorrow.
Will report back on the other movies as I watch them. I'm commited at this point, because I think the series is interesting as a cultural artifact and as a reflection of what the horror genre looked like in the mid/late 2000's. I wouldn't say I have high hopes, though.
Actually had a lot of fun with this one. The traps are good, the plot is dumber than any to come before but in a sort of soap opera "what twist will we see next" kind of way. Some thoughts:
-Very funny to compare this movie's opening to, like The Autopsy of Jane Doe. In that film the autopsy is a slow, delicate and respectful process, even as to the audience it's both a way to build tension and horrify us. Here they just pull out a saw and peel the dude like he's fuckin' fruit.
-I feel like this is one of those things where the series takes a while to solidify into the pop culture perception of it. Saw as a franchise is "that torture porn series with the complicated torture traps and dumb plot twists" and this is the first one that's been purely that with nothing else.
-Not gonna knock Hoffman, but I'm not sure about him as, like, a character. Just not a lot there as of yet.
-Not gonna look a gift mutilated rapist in the mouth, but that one felt a lot more like Jigsaw just wanted him to fail.
-The fact Jigsaw had two apprentices and was still training up another (and I know other films add more) means one of two things: either he's the most well prepared horror villain of all time, or the first one to try franchising out his likeness.
